Posts filed under 'Industry stuff'
Here’s a seemingly rather shocking case: an American man dating on a sex site met up and slept with a girl whose profile said she was 18, only to discover later (when police surrounded his house) that he’d slept with a 14 year old girl.
Said guy sued said site for damages and lost, which I’m sure will warm the heart of every site owner out there.
I know from experience how hard (read: impossible) it is to prevent people from lying about their age on sites. The girl would have had to borrow her parents’ credit card to sign up to the site, as well as lie about her age. If someone is willing to lie and steal to place a profile on your site, there is very little you can do, unless you start doing serious background checks (and those have already been proven to be somewhat pointless). It’s usually much easier to tell in person whether someone is 14 or 18.
While I feel sorry for the guy and don’t think he should have necessarily received such a heavy penalty, I’m happy to see the law recognising the fact that the site itself is not responsible. The only thing I would say is that maybe the bit in the T&C about not being able to 100% guarantee the information provided by members is accurate should be made a bit clearer, rather than (probably) being hidden somewhere half way down the list. Really, though, a bit of personal responsibility should be factored into any dating experience.
Opinions?
August 30th, 2007
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been in and out of London, enjoying the Great British Festival scene. As a result, I’ve had a chance to speak to a lot of new people from all over the country about “the whole online dating thing”.
I had a number of very interesting conversations with people who all raised the same problem they have with online dating. They all felt that dating sites made the whole process of introduction seem too much like a job application, making it unromantic. They all preferred the old method of going out there and running into people by chance, trusting their heart (or “fate”) to make the right decision for them.
I know online dating professionals often like to talk about how superior the online method is to traditional dating exactly because of the fact that it’s focused and involves making decisions with your head first and then the heart, but personally I feel that this is a matter of personal preference. Some people are always going to be ruled by their heads, while some are more intuitive by nature. Throughout the centuries, people have found love using both of these methods, so I don’t care to fault either one.
Continue Reading August 5th, 2007
My usual scan of Google news brought up an article telling marketers why they should consider advertising on dating sites.
Online dating is an incredibly fast-growing segment of the Internet. Dating sites received more than 2 million unique visitors from the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in Q1 alone. But, is that a good enough reason to advertise within dating sites?
Yes. If the ad is targeted correctly.
Well duh! I’ve never heard of that site, so it might tbe one of those sites that group weak content around adverts, but come on.
I mean, I know some agencies have a hard time getting the idea into their heads that dating sites are good for brand association, because I’ve worked with some agencies that were meant to sell ads on our sites and just never bothered to actually try to sell the space. I also know that because of the long session times and the fact that there are a lot of page views per unique visitors then the amount of money you can get for the traffic is not as high as it could be.
But, with that said, any decent dating site could do some serious, serious targeting - more so than most types of sites out there - simply because of the amount of information they collect about the users (age, sex, location, ethnicity, income, children, education, etc.). People share all that information publicly on their profiles, where they normally wouldn’t put those details into any other website.
Apart from allowing advertisers to get a good idea of the demographics for branding, this is great for direct response stuff, as in actually getting people to click through and buy stuff. I find it hard to believe that there are still people out there who don’t get that. I’d much rather thing it’s just some of the people who write about the industry that are that backwards!
May 28th, 2007
In past posts in this blog, I sang the praises of social networking sites and talked about how much more natural the meeting process is on there.
Now, after reading the article linked to below, it’s time to talk about the Other Side 
The early adopters of social networking technology were not only those separated from their friends and family by means of physical distance but also those who didn’t quite fit in with their immediate, real life environment. Sites like livejournal and Myspace are notorious for being the haunt of teenage (and older) goths who make use of the exhibitionist nature of those sites in order to finally live out their fantasies of having an active social circle and look mysterious and cool. While the ability to network with others via a mutual friend is very handy, having your friends’ list displayed in a prominent location can make the whole thing turn into a massive popularity contest, a fact which is now much abused by PR companies. People wear their friends and favourite artists like badges of honour, becoming “better people” by having a busy profile. Even the interaction is done publicly, to create the feel of being very socially involved.
Continue Reading May 25th, 2007
The BBC is reporting the results of a few interesting pieces of research about UK Internet use demographics. Apaprently, The heaviest online users in the UK are not young men, as previously taught, but 18-34 women and men over 50. Interestingly, the most visited websites are said to be those to do with parenting and childcare, as well as high street shop sites and “social networking sites like Facebook”. I’d have thought Myspace was far more popular in the UK. PR plant? Or maybe I’m just wrong?
I wonder if this trend is an indication of a predominance of stay at home moms who spend a lot of time online? when I was at Allegran, our fastest-growing site was DatingForParents and I’ve always felt it fulfiled an actual need, rather than a mere niche.
As for the men over 50, I’m at a loss. It looks like if you’re a guy over 50, looking for a much younger woman, you may actually be in with a chance. Statistically, at least
That aside, it’s always good to get a glimpse at the demographics of your market (tapped or otherwise). New product ideas anyone?
May 17th, 2007
With online dating getting so competitive, it’s getting harder and harder for sites to stand out and get noticed. Companies resort to all kinds of silly and nasty tricks to get media attention, which always amazes me. Why do people go to all that trouble when any decent-sized dating site already has a readily available massive PR resource just waiting to be used?
Continue Reading May 1st, 2007
I was really disappointed with this article that asks whether marriages following online dating hook-ups are more likely to end in divorce. When the headline asks a question like that, I expect it to deliver some sort of hard-hitting research. The answer in this case, however, is “probably not, but we have no way of knowing”. Add that to some PR plant blurb about eHarmony and Mary.com and all you get is a giant yawn. Did we really need to know that “it’s too soon to tell” whether relationship that stem from online dating are better or worse than “standard” relationships? Does having no formal data warrant a whole article dedicated to discussing this non-topic? Poor. Very poor.
Personally, I don’t think there is much of a difference between the results of either of these dating methods. I would be grossly surprised if either turned out to be more effective than the other on a large scale. Traditionalists and luddites will slate digital interaction until they’re blue in the face and online dating academics will claim to have reinvented the wheel, but in reality it’s all much of a muchness. Once you meet your match, the medium or method you used to facilitate that meeting is not really that important.
Some people have better luck meeting others online, while others do better in bars. It’s as simple as that.
April 29th, 2007
A new report published in the UK, has shown that most British Internet users do not trust online services, but use them anyway because they believe the benefits outweigh the risks. Add that to the fact that many UK users are simply not safety aware and it’s no surprise that people keep getting scammed. Are dating sites doing enough to ensure their users’ online dating safety?
Many dating sites employ moderators to weed out the scammers, but that is not always enough to stop all of them from getting through. Nasty, unethical sites lull their users into a false sense of security, but really what we need is some serious online dating safety education.
How much information is available on your site to educate people about potential dangers? Is it available somewhere obvious, or is it hidden somewhere at the back of the site? The potential existence of scammers on the site is not something any site owner would like to talk about, but really, it’s something that has to be done as part of our responsibility to our customers. Like everything else that is not a positive feature, it should be handled delicately, but it should definitely be handled, rather than swept under the carpet.
Continue Reading April 21st, 2007
Two things caught my eye today. One is the development of 3-D maps for the blind by Greek scientists (thank you SmartMobs) and the other is a Danish invention for turning web pages into Braille. Regina Lynn comments on how 3-D mapping could be applied to sexual exploration and it got me thinking about how these two new pieces of technology could be applied to the online dating world. Could turning people’s photographs into 3-d maps be possible at some point soon? Could blind people be reading dating profiles in Braille? I’m sure there’s a dating service waiting to happen right there.
April 15th, 2007
According to the UK’s office for national statistics, more than seven million people in Britain live alone now, compared with three million in 1971. Single parent families are also on the rise, especially those with lone mothers. Not only are more people living alone or without a partner, people are also getting married later, especially the men. (Full BBC article here).
Add this to the fact over half of the UK’s adult population now have access to broadband and you’ll realise that not only is there a real need in this country for online dating services, the infrastructure exists to make it relatively easy for comapnies to fulfil that need.
April 11th, 2007
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